"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

It went something like " Do you have what it takes to run the Amazing Race ..? " then about the application. Gheesh they hadn't shown TAR anything all night! Whodda thunk it or I could have captured it. Ah well maybe tomorrow night same time same place!!

CBS is gearing up for its first in-season cycle of Big Brother, which would start in February or March, three times a week. The network also ordered a 13th cycle of The Amazing Race, which had planned only one contest this season.

That seems to hint that they would like season 13 some time this year.

Question: I'm a huge fan of The Amazing Race and was disappointed last spring when CBS announced there would be only one installment this year. It seemed to me that Viva Laughlin was an obvious failure, and it lived up to that after one airing in Race's time slot. Now with the writers' strike going on, wasn't it incredibly stupid on CBS' part not to order the usual two installments? I know it's a completely different type of reality show, but I know they're prepping Big Brother for an early premiere, so it doesn't seem inconceivable to me that they could order up another edition of Race to premiere after this one ends in February. What are the chances of that? Call me greedy, but I love this show!— Jess

Matt Roush: Well, Greedy, consider that it requires a heck of a lot more logistical planning to produce a season of The Amazing Race than it does to find a new batch of irritating idiots to lock inside the Big Brother house. The likelihood of them turning around a new race so quickly seems improbable, and I haven't heard anything to suggest this will happen, but given the recent turn of events, I suppose anything's possible. The reason The Amazing Race was pared down to one cycle this season had a lot to do with the fear of it being overexposed and diluted — but given the strong numbers for its return last week, maybe that fear was premature.

Information on the Application process says that teams must be available in the April - May 2008 period for travel anywhere in the world. First interviews would take place in February, so this makes sense.

Unless, that is, they speed up the whole process, but this is rather hard to do with all the logistics and clearances that have to be obtained world-wide.